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Friday, December 4, 2015

Analysis-Paralysis “Minerva Reef Yacht Club”

Minerva Reef, stormy.

What is it about remote
“safe harbors” (North Minerva Reef, in this case)?They are an oasis
of calm, yet by their very nature they tend to be both difficult to get into
and often equally or more difficult to leave.

Our friends boat, Armagh, became "MinervaYacht Club" central for planning when to jump from Minerva to New Zealand.

The day we arrived at Minerva we got a
little bit of everything – sunshine, skirted storm cell clouds, deluges of
rain, dead calm, gentle breeze, “surfing” wind and waves with a reefed main and
jib at 7 knots, wind on our nose….It was particularly nasty as we tucked into Minerva Reef at dusk,
fighting with 18-22 knot winds and a current into the narrow pass and the 2 ½
miles across to the other side of Minerva Reef to where our friends on Armagh
anchored.

While there were some brief
pleasant periods, overall the weather was downright nasty.We were grateful for Minerva Reef’s
encircling protection against the sure to be nastier open ocean turbulence.

0.0 wind is not what you want to see when your passage hasmore miles than you have fuel. This put the kaboshon our exit plans.

Glassy-smooth. Beautiful. What Minerva looks like at 0.0 winds.

Thursday night the wind howled,
up to 33 knots (Armagh, right next to us, said they read 40 knots). No anemometer (wind meter) photo at
peak as during peak gusts Wayne wanted to be able to flick on the engine if
needed.That strategic location
placed him between me and photo access to our anemometer.

“Still too windy to go on
Sat.Can go Sunday but need to go
NW at first into W winds and will probably have to go as far as 170E to avoid a
squash* zone.”

*Squash is not a sport, a
drink or a vegetable in this context.It means nasty weather that occurs between two different weather
systems.When you’re sailing, you
want to avoid them like the plague whenever possible.The New Zealand area seems to cycle every 6-7 days, which
means for a boat traveling at our slow speed -- like ours -- it’s impossible to make it
though without getting caught at least once between systems.The trick is to pick the weather window
where the inevitable squash zones that will impact us the least negatively and
ideally help us sail comfortably with minimal use of our motor.

As we gave Bob more info about
our boat and our oft conflicting concerns

We’d like to get to New
Zealand as soon as was safely possible -- at the time, we’d targeted an arrival
of November 15th with what we thought was enough cushioning to catch
a better weather window.

Our boat is slow. We couldn’t necessarily go fast enough
or re-route far enough to catch the good stuff or to avoid the bad stuff.

If leaving earlier meant
spending more days sailing than if we waited for better conditions, we’d rather
wait (though it took us a while to accept that trade-off).

Our fuel supply was enough
to last for 3 days of motoring, in an area that might well require that much or
more.

We were perfectly ok with
winds as light as 10 knots, as long as they weren’t directly opposite where we
wanted to sail.

We preferred to avoid winds
of 25+ knots if possible, especially if they were directly opposite where we
wanted to sail.

Bob messaged

"At this stage it looks
better to wait for a Tuesday departure.At your pace that will avoid the squash zone."

Initially, this very simple weather forecast view from Predict Wind iswhat I was most comfortable viewing and analyzing.

Monday came, and several
among our boats “stuck” in Minerva Reef awaiting the best weather window, and
making decisions based on differing sources decided to gather round and compare
notes.

One boat, Tangatatu, got
weatherfax printouts.Chris and
Megan of Tangatatu wanted to base their decisions on 14 days of data,
evaluating trend effects of weather system behavior further out.However, they had no SSB data, no
satellite data, and a VHF reception so poor that not only could they not get
info from boats traveling in their area once underway, we could barely hear
them at anchorage.As the odd boat
out, anchored the furthest from the rest of us, and the most in need of data
before leaving, they dinghied the distance across the reef.

Also from Predict Wind, -- a more traditional style weather forecast GRIB, showing wind direction and intensity (more "prongs" at the club for higher winds) with golf-club-shaped icons and background color to also show wind intensity. I find them a little confusing.

Another boat, Armagh, got
graphical weather forecasting files through their SSB in combination with their
Pactor modem, but the data was a day old, there was some confusion on how to
factor out how different time zones impacted what was happening when in our
time zone.

Doug and Joy of Gamble were
also trying to use SSB for their weather data, more from information they heard
on the net broadcasts (call-ins from boats traveling the same route we were)
but were experiencing technical issues accessing it.

PredictWind's GRIB with arrows to show wind direction and background color toshow wind intensity combined became my favorite view. Our goal was to avoid theorange and red stuff (too windy) and the blue and purple stuff (too light to sail)and seek out the yellow and green stuff (just right). Notice at this point in time,there wasn't much of the good stuff along our desired route. So we waited.

Two of our boats, Armagh (Steve
and Patty) and us (on Journey) were getting customized subscription advice from
Bob McDavitt, but the questions we asked when acquiring the data influenced his
answers as did the difference between our boats.Armagh was by far the fastest boat.The other three boats – including ours -- all traveled about
20 miles less a day than theirs, a significant difference on a multi-day trip.

On Journey (our boat), we
recently began getting Predict Wind graphical weather forecasting files over
our Iridium Go, though were not yet that comfortable with the program.I was asking daily for only a 5-7 day
forecast as I didn’t trust the data or my ability to interpret it out further
than that, even though we knew it would take us more than 5-7 days to get from
Minerva to New Zealand.I figured
that’s where Bob McDavitt’s service came in.What we all liked about Predict Wind was it was easy to use,
easy to understand, dynamic (animated continuous showing over a span of time
the changes as they were expected to occur).With what little experience we had with Predict Wind, it
seemed to be more consistent, which gave us the sense it was perhaps more
accurate.

Eventually, we surmised our
biggest gap was sufficiently recent longer-term, 14-day forecasts that we were
sure we were interpreting correctly.

Fortunately, I brought my
Macintosh and my Iridium Go and got an updated forecast for 14 days to Armagh,
the host boat.Megan, of Tangatatu,
was comfortable in her ability to read and interpret my longer term
forecast.

The bonus?

Previously I’d been unable to do more than collect screen snapshots of what I
wanted from my program to share it with anyone else.Worse, I could only read whatever one forecast I had
up.To see past forecast runs, I
needed a GRIB reader (software), but figured downloading it wasn’t an option
out of normal wifi-land (or what passes for it most of the South Pacific).
Nuku’alofa, the closest normal wifi -- was over 250 miles away -- in the wrong
direction.

ZyGRIB, the weather forecasting analysis program Megan of Tangatatuis more familiar with. We input data to it from my PredictWind program.

Turns out Megan was
proficient using ZyGRIB software on the Mac (free application).Patty had a Mac, and even the ZyGRIB software there, but
didn’t know how to use it.With a
thumb drive, we copied my latest, 14-day forecast from my Predict Wind file,
and gave it Patty.Megan launched
ZyGRIB on Patty’s Mac, accessed my Predict Wind forecast on Patty’s Mac.Then Megan downloaded Patty’s ZyGRIB
onto a thumb drive, and I installed it my Mac.Viola.I could
now access any Predict Wind data runs I’d processed before on my Mac, using a
program that Wayne (and Megan) were more comfortable using than Predict Wind.

As for me, I’m still a
neophyte when it comes to weather forecasting and using it for making optimal
sailing plans.But I do now know
how to access what Wayne needs for better planning.

The ultimate outcome? At
least 8 people from 4 boats are made a better, more informed decision on when
to leave.Yes, we could have left
as early as Tuesday November 10th, but instead we left three days
later, on Friday November 13th.According to Bob, while we’d arrive later by leaving later, but not 3
days later.Be leaving later, we'd ultimately spend
less total time actually on passage.The kicker was instead of an estimated 300 miles motoring with a Tuesday
departure, leaving on Friday we expected 250 miles motoring.That 50 mile motoring difference would
net out to 10 hours less motoring, giving us an extra half-day safety margin on
using our fuel more at the tail end of the trip if we needed it.The maximum we felt we could motor was
72 hours, or about 300 miles.Normally we’d be able to do a bit better, but were experiencing two
small fuel leaks which would require parts not available until New Zealand to
repair.

We also are more comfortable
waiting if it means there’s 4 of us boats watching out for each other if
something goes awry on a passage long enough for that possibility to be more
likely.

Waves at a particularly mellow point at the edge ofNorth Minerva Reef pass upon our exit.

When all else is said and
done, safety plays the final trump card in our decision-making.

This was one case where we beleived the
“herd” mentality was a good thing.It just took the right “herd,” with the right tools and skills to work
the angles together.

We wanted to get to New
Zealand by the 15th, or, if not, as soon after that as we
could.We’re always a little
anxious about longer passages – for me that’s anything requiring at least one
overnight sail.We really, really
wanted to get this last long passage of this year behind us.Ultimately, though, we wanted to do it
safely.

For those of you who

don’t sail

don’t sail long distances,
or

would never consider sailing
across the Pacific, or

just in general think we’re
crazy….

We know we take risks.We know much is out of our control and
honestly, we’re not that comfortable about that.But we believe our greatest risks are carefully calculated
ones.

Disasters make much more
interesting movies and headlines.Every year, about 10,000 boats are making cruises like ours.Most folks only hear about and most
recall the voyages where some serious calamity occurred, not about the vast
majority of boats who complete their voyage successfully. The most frequent boat insurance claims are not for passages like the ones we take, but for unattended boats, sitting at the dock, generally catching fire or sinking.

Our location for nine days in North Minerva Reed as shown on our chart plotter.The red marks are reefs to avoid inside the reef.

Not many sailors get the
chance to arrive at a semi-sheltered reef over 250 miles away from any
landfall.Minerva Reef is an
amazing place (more on that in future posts).We feel honored to be one of the relatively few boats able
to make it here – even if we were spending it “stuck” for a week and a half,
waiting for the right weather conditions to make it safely to our ultimate
destination at this cruising year’s end, Opua, New Zealand.

Bob’s comment, when I
‘fessed up to the reasoning behind all the follow-up questions and qualifiers
for every answer he gave?

“Happens every year about
this time … ‘Minerva Yacht Club’ analysis-paralysis. “

We left Minerva Friday the 13th (we're not superstitious) of November, 2015, when we felt the breeze begin to build. The passage took us 8 1/2 days. We slogged a couple days. We had uncomfortably high winds for a couple days. Some of the time, the winds were perfect. We motored a couple days -- particularly as we were determined to get in before much higher forecast winds were about to strike. The highest wind we saw was 28 knots, less than 4 miles from Opua.

Orion, New Zealand's Maritime Patrol buzzed over Minerva Reef pass just afterwe exited, and checked in with everyone there by VHF radio.Nice to know they're there.

Ironically, Megan and Chris of Tangatatu, who
convinced us to wait, left November 10th. That was the day we planned to
leave before Megan talked us out of it, insisting November 13th was
far better. She was concerned about the impact of tropical storms off Fiji. Gamble left the day before us and arrived two days after. Armagh, a much faster boat than ours, left a few hours behind us and arrived the day before us.

Highest wind we saw all passage from Minerva Reef toOpua New Zealand, >4 miles before docking!

"How was your passage?" is the most common question amongst cruisers meeting in Opua. As we compared notes with other cruisers, we realized we had about the best possible passage we could have with the boat we have, certainly far mellower than most other cruisers we talked to. Our answer evolved from "rough" (waterlogged, with torn sails, etc.) sheared to "we're glad we're here!" to "once of the better passages, from what we hear!"

Opua Bay of Island Marina, our first New Zealand landfall.We are currently anchored nearby.

Location LocationRecent retrospective of our time at Minerva Reef (S23.39.253 W178.53.770), November 4-13, 2015 and passage to Opua (S35.18.826 E174.07.312), arriving November 21, 2015. We moved onto anchor Nov 29 2015 near Russell, New Zealand and are currently in Waitata Bay (S35.15.313 E174.07.974).Cruising By the NumbersSince we left Jacksonville Florida in December, 2014 -- less than a year ago -- we've sailed over 10,000 miles!